She returned to the laptop. Archie followed her hesitantly, holding the handkerchief to his belly. He watched as her fingers glided over the keyboard and another window appeared onscreen next to the video feed from outside.

Like the security footage, the feed was in black-and-white and the resolution wasn’t sharp, but Archie knew Susan immediately. She was a small figure, sitting with her arms around her knees in a ball of light surrounded by darkness. He recognized the shape of the lantern at her feet—a Coleman, like Gretchen’s.

Susan was somewhere in the subbasement with them.

Archie’s eyes traveled over the outline of the blade case in Gretchen’s front pocket. His pulse throbbed in his ears. If Susan was in the basement, then Archie didn’t need Gretchen. He could find her himself. He wondered if he could put his hands around Gretchen’s neck and break it before she stabbed him somewhere that mattered. He didn’t have a lot of practice breaking necks. It would probably be close.

“You think you can find her without me?” Gretchen asked. “Maybe she’s down here. But there are dozens of rooms, old tunnels, secret passageways. Maybe she’s in another basement. They do make such excellent cells.” Gretchen leaned into him and nuzzled against his neck again, and Archie winced as her hip connected with his wound. “You need me,” Gretchen said.

Archie kept his eyes fixed on the screen, on Susan, trying to make sense of all this. Three hours was enough time for Gretchen to have taken Susan, driven to the lake, and made it through the tunnels with Susan in tow, and then back to Archie’s place. And adjusting the security camera behind the boathouse, installing the webcams—she’d had all day to do that.

Susan rocked back and forth on the screen, her arms squeezed tightly around her knees. It was hard to tell how big the room was, but Susan seemed especially small. It looked like she didn’t want to take up much space, like she didn’t want to touch anything around her. Her face, in the lantern light, was a blur of white and black static.

Why sit in the middle of the floor like that? Why not sit against a wall?

Archie had a sickening revelation. “You put her in his kill room, didn’t you?” Archie said.

Gretchen lifted her head from his chest and gave him a wicked smile.

Archie looked back at the screen. Susan was still in a tight little ball, rocking back and forth. He needed to get her out of there. But Gretchen would never be convinced to move her, especially if Archie showed concern. He had to make it about something else. Archie injected a note of irritation into his voice. “Is there physical evidence in there?” he asked.

Gretchen’s eyes flicked to the screen.